Pune: A car driver and his accomplice were booked by the Hadapsar police on the charge of kicking a traffic constable in the stomach when the latter tried to remove the vehicle’s ignition key during a traffic jam at Handewadi Chowk around 5.30pm on August 10. Sub-inspector Vinod Pawar on Monday said traffic constable Ajinkya Nangude (34) from the Handewadi traffic police was diverting vehicles to clear the way following a traffic jam, when he signalled the car driver to stop.
But he kept moving ahead with his vehicle and added to the congestion. Pawar said Nangude then tried to remove the ignition key of the car. “This infuriated the driver.
He first hit the constable’s left hand with some object. Later, he got down from the vehicle and kicked the constable in the stomach,” the officer said. When contacted, Nangude said, “The car driver abused me twice and clicked my photos.
He sped away, taking advantage of the chaos after my colleague intervened in the dispute. The car driver would be arrested at the earliest because the witnesses have given the registration number of the vehicle to the police.” Around the same time, another car driver, Maruti Mane (22) from Manjri Budruk, abused the same traffic constable for issuing him an e-challan over a violation of traffic rules.
The police have filed a case against Mane and arrested him on the charge of attacking a public servant under Section 132 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Nangude added. There have been multiple incidents of motorists manhandling policemen on duty for trying to discipline them. On July 21, a police sub-inspector of a night patrol team fired a round from his service pistol at a four-wheeler after the car’s four occupants tried to hit the patrol team during a failed attempt to steal fuel from a truck parked near Katraj Chowk.
In April 2023, a traffic police constable clung on to the wiper of a hatchback car to save his life as its driver steered the vehicle 30 metres with him on the bonnet. The incident occurred at Khadobamal Chowk in Chinchwad. The traffic police constable had suffered minor injuries in the incident.
A police constable was “taken for a ride” in November 2020 when he tried to stop a car driver for not wearing a mask in Chinchwad on Thursday. Wearing mask was mandatory then because of Covid pandemic. He was dragged a kilometre on the bonnet of the four-wheeler.
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